Free Someone Is Bleeding by Richard Matheson Page B

he wanted it, I’d find another lawyer.”
    I imagined Jim’s reaction to that.
    “Is that all?” I said.
    “So he said all right, to see you if I wanted.”
    “That was sweet of him,” I said.
    “Yes,” she said, “he told me . . .”
    “What?”
    She seemed flustered. “It’s not important.” “Tell me.”
    “No, Davie, it isn’t . . .”
    “Tell me.”
    Well.” She looked upset. “He said . . . you . . . he said he’d show you up. It’s silly.”
    “Silly.”
    I put on my jacket.
    “He’d show you I wasn’t worth anything,” I said.
    “Let’s not talk about it,” she said. “Let’s talk about something else. You know what they’re playing tonight? Sibelius’ Second Symphony. Isn’t that wonderful?”
    I took her arm with a heavy, dejected breath.
    “I’m sure the three of us will love it,” I said.
    * * *
    One of the first things Jim said at dinner was, “David, I want to apologize quite sincerely for the terrible mistake Steig made the other night. I guess he jumped to conclusions that were unwarranted:
    He shrugged like the genial apologizer he wasn’t.
    “Steig has been disciplined,” Jim said like a stern schoolmaster.
    “What did you do,” I asked, “take away his pet spiders?”
    He smiled. Perfect combination smile. Clever admixture of amusement and aloofness. A look that said to Peggy—there, you see, my dear, I told you that this lout was beyond all appeal to decent behavior.
    I drank heavily at dinner. I don’t know what was the matter with me. I guess I’m spoiled. I just wouldn’t take that evening straight. I couldn’t beat Jim in his own territory at a game he made the rules for. I felt clamped and a hapless jerk from the start.
    As a result I just drank and sniped like a kid all night.
    Jim’s tactics weren’t too obscure for me to guess, however, drunk as I was. A simple maneuver. An overweening niceness toward me, a mannerly well-behaved attitude toward Peggy. And, behind all this, a machete mind hacking away at Peggy’s opinion of me. How?
    By showing off.
    Simple. Little boys do it. They stand on their heads and get red-faced and impress little pig-tailed inquisitors. And as they grow older they keep it up. But more subtly. No more standing on heads. There are other ways.
    He took us to Ciro’s for dinner. He ordered for the three of us like a father. I started to argue but he made me feel like a clod for doing it. He said he knew what they did best there. I didn’t want to make a scene yet and I let him have his continuously jovial and throat-cutting way.
    He was charming the pants off us. Off Peggy, anyway. With his knowledge of wines and exotic dishes. And, naturally, with his ordering of the most expensive dishes on the menu—and that’s expensive.
    And all the while treating me like a misbehaving little son who he’d been compelled to drag along because no one would baby-sit with the little bastard.
    Giving out with little cleverly coated stabs.
    Like. “You look very nice tonight, David. I always did like that suit at college.”
    Or, “Have you been here many times, David?”
    Or . . . why go on. Only one thing to say. Peggy was impressed by all of it. Impressed despite her so-called love for me. In spite of the fact that she saw how Jim was trying to relegate me.
    While I drank. I kept thinking of Audrey, driven to the same expedient but, now, permanently. I saw her in her room pining for this big hulk of egotism or driving into town looking for bars wherein to find amber solace. Her body twisting itself into knot over a man who didn’t care if she was alive or dead.
    And Dennis with his temper and his nervous stomach living from tantrum to tantrum, wanting Peggy for no other reason than his brother also wanted her. All these human beings in search of something.
    At the Bowl, it turned out that Jim had bought the most expensive seats. Right in front of the stage We’d be able to smell what Mitropoulos had for supper. The best seats. Jim