I said,“Who the hell are you?”
His mouth dropped open like a trap door.
“So who the hell are you?” I demanded again.
He cocked his head like a dog trying to comprehend its master, narrowing his eyes, making them seem more close-set than they really were.
“Well?” I said.
That’s the only way I know to handle a situation like that: turn the tables, put the shoe on the other foot, or whatever other cliche you want to use to describe what I was doing to him. It was the only way I knew that might avoid immediate violence. I don’t care for physical violence myself, and try to duck it whenever possible.
Especially when faced with a guy both bigger and stronger than me, facts made obvious by his standing there in swim trunks and towel, the latter flung casually over a classically muscular shoulder.
“Well, are you coming in or aren’t you?” I asked.
He pushed the door shut. His teeth were showing. He wasn’t smiling. But he was too confused to be violent. At the moment.
“I don’t know you,” he said.
“If I knew you,” I said, “would I be asking your goddamn name every couple seconds?”
His eyebrows were as light a blond as the hair on his head. His nose was small, almost feminine. He really was prettier-looking than the dragon lady. But nowhere near as interesting.
“You got a reason for being in Glenna’s room?” he said. His voice was medium-range, flat, uninteresting.
“Sure. Do you?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I live here.”
“The hell you say.” I knew he did, of course, had seen the men’s clothing in the closet and in dresser drawers, and knew of the female domination of the place which meant any man here was living with whatever woman he served. What I didn’t know was how fast this asshole was, that he’d pull a wham/bam/thank-you-ma’am on that female counterpart of himself he’d gone off into the shadows with. I mean, even at the Beach Shore you spent the night with whoever you banged. Sometimes you stayed the month.
“Hey,” he said, sitting in a chair across from me, a glass coffee table separating us. “Hey, I’ve seen you someplace. You staying here with somebody? Have I seen you down by the pool?”
“I’m staying here. You might have seen me.”
“But we haven’t met.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Norm Morrow.”
“Burt Thompson.”
We didn’t shake hands, by the way.
“Okay, then. Okay, Burt. Now we’re introduced. Now maybe you don’t mind going into what you’re doing in here?”
“I’m waiting for Glenna.”
“Glenna’s gone.”
“She’ll be back.”
“Not for a while, bud.”
“I’ll wait a while. And it’s Burt.”
“I don’t give a fuck it’s Henry Kissinger. I’m starting to get the idea you’re fucking around with me, and I don’t like it.”
“If you hadn’t gone fucking around with some other piece of ass but Glenna, maybe she wouldn’t have asked me up here.”
“That’s horseshit, pal.”
“How so?”
“Glenna doesn’t give a damn what I do while she’s gone, she’s gone sometimes a month at a time, and she doesn’t expect me to be a fucking priest, you know? It’s an understanding we got. And I’m beginning to understand something else… I had about enough of you. Now what is this really about?”
“All I know is she asked me up, asked me to stay on, maybe she just figured I’d pass the word onto you your welcome was worn out.. ”
“Hey. You were just leaving, sport.”
“I don’t want any trouble. You’re a whole lot stronger than me, I can see that. No need to go proving it.”
“So get the fuck out of here, then.”
“Look, why don’t we just ask Glenna which of us she wants to hang around.”
“What? She split, she’s gone, hasn’t that sunk in yet, you jackass?”
“We’ll call her and ask her.”
“I don’t have a number to reach her, and neither do you.”
“I admit I don’t. I just thought maybe you did. You say you live here.”
“Well… sometimes she leaves a number.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know why I’m playing along with you on this, I really don’t…”
“We’ll call. Come on.”
“She won’t be there till tomorrow, at least. She’s driving, and it’s a long way where she’s headed.”
“Where’s that?”
“You’re her new boyfriend and you don’t know? Hey. That’s all. That’s all I can take. Just haul your ass off that couch and get outa here. Okay?”
I was admiring a metallic abstract sculpture on the glass coffee table between us. It was egg-shaped, the sculpture, with an indentation on either side, and about the size of a baseball, a little taller maybe. When I hit him with it, he went down without a sound. He missed the table, landed soft on the tufts of shag carpet. I hit him again, once, in the same spot, and made sure the skull was cracked open.
One good thing was he landed on his right side and it was his left side I’d hit, the left side of his head I mean, so there wasn’t any blood on the carpet, and wouldn’t be if I moved him quick and careful.
I left him in the bathtub, after pulling off his trunks, heaving him in, turning on the shower, and leaving him looking like he’d slipped and fallen in there, cracking his head open against the side of the tub.
The work of art I wrapped in a towel and took with me, for later disposal.
The telephone number she left him I found under the phone.