Read Online 1975 - Night of the Juggler by William P. McGivern - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William P. McGivern
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else. It wasn’t a cat he wanted. It was something else. He sighed with relief, remembering what it was. A kitten, not a cat. A kitten. He stood then, turning his head slowly, forcing himself to listen, straining to hear the sound of sirens and fire engines. That’s where kittens were. At fires. He had seen the cats carrying the kittens in their mouths, running from fires and streams of water and the sounds of men’s voices echoing hideously from horns. He must find a fire. And then a kitten, Gus Soltik thought. He bobbed his head quickly at these conclusions, pleased that he had forgotten nothing. The knife, the ropes, nothing. . . . All for what he thought of as “white legs” or “greenropes.”
Chapter 4
“I must have understood you when we were younger. Or maybe I just accepted you and was too stupid to ask any questions. At any rate, bein’ a young and dutiful Southern belle”—the voice dropped suddenly into a mocking, mushmouth Southern accent—”Ah just didn’t feel Ah had the right to ask my little ole hubby any questions at all ‘cept did he want anything from me before he went off to beddie-bye and sweet old dreams.”
Luther Boyd sat in his study listening to his wife’s voice as it came to him from the slowly spinning reels of the tape recorder. He sat forward on the edge of the chair, his hands locked tightly together, his elbows resting on his knees. His face was creased in a line of bitter frustration. On the table beside him was an untasted whiskey and soda and pouch and pipe, which he had put aside after listening to his wife’s first words to him: “I expect you’ve got your pipe lighted and a drink in your hand and are prepared to listen with that goddamn respectful and skeptical smile of yours to all my sad stories.”
Luther had played the tape several times and almost knew it by heart.
He punched a button stopping the tape and let it spin forward to her last few paragraphs, which contained the crucial substance of her accusations. Pressing the play button, Boyd settled back in his chair and picked up the drink in which the ice had long ago dissolved, his mood a curious and uncharacteristic blend of defeat and confusion.
He had picked up his wife in mid-sentence. “. . . oh, damn it, I missed my point.” There was silence. Then he heard the clink of ice in a glass, the liquid splash of what he assumed to be vodka, since that was her preference in increasing quantities since Buddy had died. “Yes, I’m having a tall, cold one, Colonel. Well, what was my point? Oh, just this. I could understand a young boy hunting down every animal that moved just so he could kill it. And when you couldn’t do the job personally, you trained dogs and falcons to do it. After all, young boys don’t know any better. And I can understand a youngster going off to the wars. That, except for that shameful pig-sticking in Vietnam, was the patriotic thing to do. But I can’t understand a grown man devoting decades not just to killing animals and men but to teaching others to do the same thing and publishing books with diagrams to make the slaughter ugly and efficient and scientific. That’s what Buddy couldn’t understand either.” Barbara’s voice was rising emotionally. “He went into the Army and got himself killed. Not because he loved and respected you. But because he needed your love and respect. And that was the only goddamn way he thought he could get them.”
Luther Boyd heard his daughter Kate’s bedroom door open, followed instantly by a blast of music from her hi-fi set. He winced while quickly punching off the tape recorder. Goddamn it, he thought resentfully—and he was thinking now of both Kate’s music and Barbara’s attitudes—he was a square, and he hated that cacophony of raucous noise called rock music, and he was a patriot and he loved his country and had fought for it, so why should he be put on trial for his attitudes and convictions?
When Kate ran into the study
Chapter 4
“I must have understood you when we were younger. Or maybe I just accepted you and was too stupid to ask any questions. At any rate, bein’ a young and dutiful Southern belle”—the voice dropped suddenly into a mocking, mushmouth Southern accent—”Ah just didn’t feel Ah had the right to ask my little ole hubby any questions at all ‘cept did he want anything from me before he went off to beddie-bye and sweet old dreams.”
Luther Boyd sat in his study listening to his wife’s voice as it came to him from the slowly spinning reels of the tape recorder. He sat forward on the edge of the chair, his hands locked tightly together, his elbows resting on his knees. His face was creased in a line of bitter frustration. On the table beside him was an untasted whiskey and soda and pouch and pipe, which he had put aside after listening to his wife’s first words to him: “I expect you’ve got your pipe lighted and a drink in your hand and are prepared to listen with that goddamn respectful and skeptical smile of yours to all my sad stories.”
Luther had played the tape several times and almost knew it by heart.
He punched a button stopping the tape and let it spin forward to her last few paragraphs, which contained the crucial substance of her accusations. Pressing the play button, Boyd settled back in his chair and picked up the drink in which the ice had long ago dissolved, his mood a curious and uncharacteristic blend of defeat and confusion.
He had picked up his wife in mid-sentence. “. . . oh, damn it, I missed my point.” There was silence. Then he heard the clink of ice in a glass, the liquid splash of what he assumed to be vodka, since that was her preference in increasing quantities since Buddy had died. “Yes, I’m having a tall, cold one, Colonel. Well, what was my point? Oh, just this. I could understand a young boy hunting down every animal that moved just so he could kill it. And when you couldn’t do the job personally, you trained dogs and falcons to do it. After all, young boys don’t know any better. And I can understand a youngster going off to the wars. That, except for that shameful pig-sticking in Vietnam, was the patriotic thing to do. But I can’t understand a grown man devoting decades not just to killing animals and men but to teaching others to do the same thing and publishing books with diagrams to make the slaughter ugly and efficient and scientific. That’s what Buddy couldn’t understand either.” Barbara’s voice was rising emotionally. “He went into the Army and got himself killed. Not because he loved and respected you. But because he needed your love and respect. And that was the only goddamn way he thought he could get them.”
Luther Boyd heard his daughter Kate’s bedroom door open, followed instantly by a blast of music from her hi-fi set. He winced while quickly punching off the tape recorder. Goddamn it, he thought resentfully—and he was thinking now of both Kate’s music and Barbara’s attitudes—he was a square, and he hated that cacophony of raucous noise called rock music, and he was a patriot and he loved his country and had fought for it, so why should he be put on trial for his attitudes and convictions?
When Kate ran into the study
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