Free Case of Lucy Bending by Lawrence Sanders Page B

had it. It was all so finky. Everything was. He wanted to set fire to the world. He could burn, pillage, kill; he didn't care. Nothing made sense.
    What was so awful, what fueled his anger, was the gap between what people said and what they did. It was obvious to him that everyone lied. Everyone cheated. Everyone screwed everyone else. No one was faithful, to anything or anyone. People were shit; he recognized that, and it infuriated him.
    Look at his father . . . And his mother . . .
    He heard a low whistle and straightened up. Eddie Holloway came sauntering in, his blond hair gleaming. Wayne could see his teeth shining.
    "Get them okay?" he asked.
    "No sweat," Eddie said, sitting down alongside Wayne.
"I would have copped a couple more, but she's only got eight left."
"Won't she notice these two are missing?"
"Maybe," Eddie said, shrugging. "If she does, she'll think Maria lifted them. Jesus, what a night. That party was the pits; the pits. Let's light up, and away we go."
That was another thing that depressed Wayne Bending.
He had smoked marijuana twice before with Eddie Holloway, and it hadn't done anything for him. He had followed Eddie's instructions, inhaled deeply, held the smoke in his lungs, and waited. Nothing. He had watched Eddie get high and felt a vague panic at his own lack of response.
Because he wanted Eddie—the best-looking guy on the beach, the most popular and coolest—to think well of him, to like him. Because he wanted to be Eddie Holloway's best friend. So he had faked it.
He had rolled his eyes, slumped limply. He murmured, "Oh man, that's cool, that's really tough." He mimicked Eddie's high, pretending a euphoria he didn't feel.
That made him just as finky as everyone else, didn't it?
So they lighted up, dragged away, grinned vacuously, and told each other how great it was to get out of it. They smoked slowly, but soon enough they were down to tiny roaches they could not hold without burning their fingertips.
Then Eddie lay on his back, stretched his arms wide. He giggled, and drummed his heels lightly on the packed sand.
"Oh man," he murmured, "this is it. This is really it."
Then Wayne Bending, for reasons he could not understand, rolled onto his side. He propped himself up and leaned over Eddie Holloway. He brought his face slowly close and kissed Eddie on the lips.
It lasted. Not long, but not a short time either. Then Eddie rolled his head away and stared into Wayne's glittering eyes.
"You nut," he said, laughing softly, "what do you think you're doing?"
    Former Senator Randolph Diedrickson was living out his days in a home that resembled a New England merchant's mansion more than an antebellum plantation. It was all white fretwork and gingerbread trim, with gables, dormers, bow windows, and a stained glass fanlight over the doorway.
    The senator, confined to a wheelchair by rheumatoid arthritis, had an elevator installed in this rambling and somewhat fusty manse. So he was able to get around easily (the wheelchair was battery-powered), but spent most of his time in his upstairs study or on the sundeck at the top of the house, three stories up.
    Since the house was centered in a three-acre plot, and the nearest neighbors inhabited ranch-type dwellings, the senator achieved complete privacy on his sundeck. He frequently assured visitors he felt close to God up there. He said this with a straight face, and they never knew whether or not he was serious. The majority decided he was.
    Most mornings he spent dictating his memoirs into a tape recorder. He had spent thirty-six years in the Congress of the United States, and believed his recollections of events during those stirring days would be of interest to historians.
    The tapes were later transcribed by a full-time, live-in secretary (white, male) who worked in the second-floor study. This amanuensis also made complete sentences and corrected the grammar of the senator's ramblings. He had already amassed 800 pages, and they were only up to