He was in an ecstasy of rage now, and later he would not be able to understand why the sight of her bleeding feet had blown all his circuits that way. For the moment it didn't matter. He screamed into her face: "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! " The word echoed back from the high-rise apartment buildings, dim and meaningless.
She put her hands over her face and leaned forward, crying. It made him even angrier, and he supposed that part of it was that she really didn't want to see: she would just as soon put her hands over her face and let him lead her, why not, there had always been someone around to take good care of Our Heroine, Little Rita. Someone to drive the car, do the marketing, wash out the toilet bowl, do the taxes. So let's put on some of that gagging-sweet Debussy and put our well-manicured hands over our eyes and leave it all up to Larry. Take care of me, Larry, after seeing what happened to the monster-shouter, I've decided I don't want to see anymore. It's all rawther sordid for one of my breeding and background.
He yanked her hands away. She cringed and tried to put them over her eyes again.
"Look at me."
She shook her head.
"Goddammit, you look at me, Rita."
She finally did in a strange, flinching way, as if thinking he would now go to work on her with his fists as well as his tongue. The way a part of him felt now, that would be just fine.
"I want to tell you the facts of life because you don't seem to understand them. The fact is, we may have to walk another twenty or thirty miles. The fact is, if you get infected from those scrapes, you could get blood poisoning and die. The fact is, you've got to get your thumb out of your ass and start helping me."
He had been holding her by the upper arms, and he saw that his thumbs had almost disappeared into her flesh. His anger broke when he saw the red marks that appeared when he let her go. He stepped away, feeling uncertain again, knowing with sick certainty that he had overreacted. Larry Underwood strikes again. If he was so goddam smart, why hadn't he checked out her footgear before they started out?
Because that's her problem, part of him said with surly defensiveness.
No, that wasn't true. It had been his problem. Because she didn't know. If he was going to take her with him (and it was only today that he had begun to think how much simpler life would be if he hadn't), he was just going to have to be responsible for her.
Be damned if I will, the surly voice said.
His mother: You're a taker, Larry.
The oral hygienist from Fordham, crying out her window after him: I thought you were a nice guy! You ain't no nice guy!
There's something left out of you, Larry. You're a taker.
That's a lie! That is a goddamned LIE!
"Rita," he said, "I'm sorry."
She sat down on the pavement in her sleeveless blouse and her white deckpants, her hair looking gray and old. She bowed her head and held her hurt feet. She wouldn't look at him.
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I... look, I had no right to say those things." He did, but never mind. If you apologized, things got smoothed over. It was how the world worked.
"Go on, Larry," she said, "don't let me slow you down."
"I said I was sorry," he told her, his voice a trifle petulant. "We'll get you some new shoes and some white socks. We'll..."
"We'll nothing. Go on."
"Rita, I'm sorry - "
"If you say that one more time, I'll scream. You're a shit and your apology is not accepted. Now go on."
"I said I was - "
She threw back her head and shrieked. He took a step backward, looking around to see if anyone had heard her, to see if maybe a policeman was running over to see what kind of awful thing that young fellow was doing to the old lady who was sitting on the sidewalk with her shoes off. Culture lag, he thought distractedly, what fun it all is.
She stopped screaming and looked at him. She made a flicking gesture with her hand, as if he was a bothersome fly.
"You better stop," he said, "or I really will leave you."
She only looked at him. He couldn't meet her eyes and so dropped his gaze, hating her for making him do that.
"All right," he said, "have a good time getting raped and murdered."
He shouldered the rifle and started off again, now angling left toward the car-packed 495 entrance ramp, sloping down toward the tunnel's mouth. At the foot of the ramp he saw there had been one hell of a crash; a man driving a Mayflower moving van had tried to butt his way into the main traffic flow and cars were scattered around the van like bowling pins. A burned-out Pinto lay almost beneath the van's body. The van's driver hung halfway out of the cab window, head down, arms dangling. There was a fan of dried blood and puke sprayed out below him on the door.
Larry looked around, sure he would see her walking toward him or standing and accusing him with her eyes. But Rita was gone.
"Fuck you," he said with nervous resentment. "I tried to apologize."