Free Huckleberry Fiend by Julie Smith Page A

leave tomorrow, you’ll feel much better about yourself, and your house will be yours again. You won’t have to dread coming back all the time we’re in Hawaii.”
    She laughed.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “I’ve been dreading going to Hawaii. Because I’ve been worried that I’ll just worry all the time we’re there. About coming back.”
    “You see? Is Papa Bear right?”
    “Um-hmm.” There was a rustle, as of a large bear enfolding Goldilocks in his masculine embrace. Then there were squeaks and things. Then someone walked a few steps and the room went dark.
    And then passed several eventful centuries, during which every muscle I owned put up a protest that made the anti-Vietnam movement seem insignificant. After that, light breathing and heavy snoring.
    Looking at it logically, Booker’s father was well into his fifties and therefore surely wasn’t capable of making love for more than a couple of hours maximum. That meant there were still five or six hours till dawn and no telling how long before Isami and Papa Bear would get up to catch their plane. I simply was not going to make it. If I woke them up trying to leave, at least they’d be distracted and maybe Booker could get away. I’d save him from the horror of getting caught spying on his father’s leisure-time activities. I was a pal when you thought about it. Holding my breath, I reached for the closet door. It wasn’t there.

CHAPTER 7
    A hand grabbed mine and Booker whispered, “Paul, it’s me.” By the time I’d stifled the automatic gasp, he was already padding soundlessly toward the kitchen. I followed, thanking God for professional help. I had no idea if I could have gotten the door open without a telltale snick. As it was, I rustled a few of Isami’s frocks, but she and Kessler Senior were apparently too exhausted to stir. Getting out of the pitch-dark bedroom was the worst, but once in the hall, I turned on my pen-light and was out of there in two shakes, through the open back door, stopping only to close it. By the time I got to the car, Booker was already warming it up.
    I had to drive, though. A more unnerved human being I have rarely seen than the scrawny, sweat-soaked redhead who beckoned me into the driver’s seat and seemed to need all his remaining strength to slide over the gear shift to shotgun. Neither of us spoke for a few blocks. Finally I ventured, “You okay?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Shall I drop you at Langley-Porter?” (As this was the local mental hospital, I was making a feeble joke.)
    “Take me to Perry’s.”
    “Listen, buddy, I know you need a drink, but Perry’s is too damn noisy.”
    “I’ve got to get laid.”
    “You mean you were excited by what we— uh— witnessed?” But that wasn’t it— I could tell by the look of him. He wanted human warmth and comfort.
    “Back off, Mcdonald.”
    “Sorry. But—”
    “Shut up, will you? Just take me to goddam Perry’s!” Very well then. He could just wait till morning to find out that the mission hadn’t failed after all. If he was going to talk to me like that, I certainly wasn’t going to bother trying to cheer him up.
    “Your trouble,” said Sardis later, “is you get your feelings hurt too easily.”
    “Hurt, hell! I was mad.”
    “Same thing.”
    “It certainly isn’t.”
    “Not for everybody. For you it is. Some people just go lick their wounds— you attack.”
    “That is far and away the most unfair thing I ever heard in my life. I most assuredly did not attack.”
    “Not directly, maybe.”
    “Oh, go shrink your head.” I stalked out of her apartment, seething. There might have been something in what she said, though. I felt less like a raging bull than one pierced by picadors. As soon as that thought entered my head another one did: Goddam , she makes me mad!
    Well, the hell with her. I stepped in the shower.
    And because I still hadn’t given her the damn key, had to get out when she came down and knocked on the door.
    She’d