9

RUTH WAS SURPRISED TO FIND HERSELF ENJOYING THE anger that condensed the room around her. The frustrated emotion that had built up in her out there in the night with Andy had an outlet at last. She watched the nervous twisting of Nev's pink hands with their baby- skin creases at the knuckles. She knew how his hands betrayed his feelings no matter what the masked rest of him revealed. Eight months of living with the man had given her considerable knowledge. Words came out of her full lips now like slivers of bamboo to be inserted beneath Nev's manicured soul.

"Scream about your husband's rights all you want," she said. "The business is mine now and I don't want you anywhere near it. Ohhh, I know why you married me. You didn't fool me for long, Nev. Not for long."

"Ruth, you ... "

"No more! Andy's out there waiting for me. I'm going to take the few things I want here and I'm leaving."

Nev's wide high forehead creased. The shoe-button eyes stared at her with their matched nothingness. On one of her rampages again, that's all. And enjoying it, damn her! I can tell by the way she shakes her head like a horse ... whores ... horse ... whores --a horsey, high- class whore.

Ruth broke her gaze away from him. Nev frightened her when he stared that way. She studied the room, wondering if there were anything here she wanted now. Nothing. It was a Nev Hudson room with overlapping muted reds and browns, Oriental bric-a-brac, a grand piano in one corner, a closed violin case that opened to reveal three bottles of liquor and a set of glasses. Nev liked that. "Lets get drunk and make beautiful music, honey." Windows beyond the piano stood uncurtained to the night and garden lights, lawn, barbecue pit, wrought iron furniture standing whitely dripping after the rain.

"California is a community-property state," Nev said.

"You'd better look into the law again," she said. "The business is my inheritance."

"Inheritance?" he asked. "But your father's not dead yet."

She stood staring at the night, refusing to let him goad her.

Damn her! he thought. I should've done better in a woman but not with a business thrown into the bargain. She's thinking about that bastard Andy Thurlow. She wants him but she needs my brains running the business. That ugly stick of a boy-man in her bed! She won't have him; I'll see to it.

"If you go away with this Dr. Thurlow, I'll ruin him professionally and I'll ruin you," he said.

She turned her head sideways, presenting a Greek profile, the severe line of her red hair tied at the back. A barely perceptible smile touched her lips, was gone. "Jealous, Nev?"

"I've warned you."

"You married me for the business," she said. "What do you care how I spend my time?" And she turned toward him. Squirm, you little pig of a man! What was I thinking of? What was I ever thinking of to take you instead of Andy. Did something twist my emotions, make me do it? She felt suddenly weak with the hungry hating. Is any choice ever right right right? Andy choosing that Fellowship instead of me, his eyes full of innocence oh hateful! Where did I spend my innocence? Unthinking about animal bodies and power. Did I choose power in Nev? But he let me take it away from him his own power and now I can hate him with it.

"The daughter of a murderer!" he snapped.

She glared at him. Is this what I chose? Why why why? Lonely, that's why. All alone when Andy left men for that damned Fellowship and there was Nev Nev Nev insistent kind kind like a fox. Drunk I was drunk and feeling hateful. Nev used my hate that's the only power he had --hate my hate my hate I mustn't hate then and he's powerless I won't even hate him putting his hand on my knee oh so kind so kind and a little higher and there we were in bed married and Andy away in Denver and I was still alone.

"I'm going," she said. "Andy's going to drive me over to Sarah's. If you try to stop me, I'll call him in and I'm quite sure he can handle you."

Nev's narrow, purse-string mouth tightened. His shoe-button eyes betrayed a brief flaring and then the mask was back in place. I'll ruin them both! The bitch prattling about Andy well I showed dear old honest Andy the boy with the built in system of honor and what would she say if she learned I was the one put on the pressure to get him that Fellowship?

"You know what the town'll think," he said. "Like father like daughter. They'll take my side. You know that."

She stamped her foot. "You pig!"

Certainly, Ruth, my dear. Get angry and stamp around like a wonderful animal my god would I like to take you to bed right now angry and hurting throwing yourself and twisting and jerking my god you're splendid when you're angry. I'm better for you than Andy and you should know it we're two of a kind we take what we want and damn the honor no honor no honor on her on her on her what an animal when she's angry but that's what life's for to take to take and take and take until we're filled up on it and she raves about Andy going back to him but Andy doesn't take from me no siree I'll get rid of him just as easily as I did before and Ruthy'll come crawling back to her ever loving Nev who knows her right down to her adorable most angry adorable if I only had the guts to yank you into the bedroom right now ... well, I'd get rid of Andy just like I did before.

"We'll strike a bargain," he said. "Go along with your lover, but don't interfere with how I run the business. You said it yourself: what do I care how you spend your time?"

Go ahead, compromise yourselves, he thought. I'll own you.

She whirled away, strode down the hall, jerked open the bedroom door, snapped on the light.

Nev was right behind her. He stood in the doorway watching as she yanked clothes from drawers and the closet, threw them on the bed.

"Well, what about it?" he asked.

She forced words out of her mouth, knowing they told more than she wanted to reveal. "All right! Keep the business ... or whatever. We know what's precious to you." She turned to face him, near tears and fighting to hide it "You're the most hateful creature I've ever met! You can't be human." She put a hand to her mouth. "I wonder if you are."

"What's that supposed to ... " He broke off, stared past her toward the French doors onto the patio. "Ruth ... " Her name came out in a strangled gasp.

She whirled.

The French doors stood open to reveal three squat figures clothed in green moving into the room. To Ruth, their heads seemed strangely large, the eyes faintly luminous and frightening. They carried short tubes of silvery metal. There was a disdainful sense of power in the purposeful way they fanned out, pointing those metal tubes casually at the bedroom's occupants.

Ruth found herself wondering with an odd feeling of surprise how they'd opened the French doors without her hearing it.

Behind her, Nev gasped, said: "See here! Who ... " His voice trailed off in a frightening hiss, an exhalation as though he were a punctured balloon. A liquid trilling sound poured from the mouth of the creature on Ruth's right

This can't be happening, she thought. Then: They're the creatures who frightened us in the grove! What do they want? What're they doing?

She found suddenly that she couldn't move. Her head felt detached, mind clear, but there were no connections to her body. One of the creatures moved to stand directly in front of her --a queer little manling in green leotards, his torso partly concealed in a cloudy, bulging roundness that pulsed with a purple inner light She remembered Andy's description of what he'd seen: "Glowing eyes ... "

Andy! She wanted to scream for him, but her voice wouldn't obey. How drifting and soft the world seemed!

Something jerked past her and she saw Nev there walking as though pulled by strings. Her eyes focused on a smudge of powder along his shoulder, a pulsing vein at his temple. He tipped forward suddenly in that strange marionette way, falling rigidly into one of the open French doors. There came the crash and tinkling of broken glass. The floor around him became bright with flowing red. He twitched, lay still.

The gnome creature in front of her spoke quite distinctly in English: "An accident, you see?"

She had no voice to answer, only a distant horror somewhere within the powdery billowing that was her self. Ruth closed her eyes, thinking; Andy! Oh, Andy, help me!

Again, she heard one of the creatures speak in that liquid trilling. She tried to open her eyes, couldn't. Waves of darkness began to wash over what remained of her awareness. As unconsciousness came, her mind focused clearly on a single oddly pertinent thought: This can't be happening because no one would believe it. This is nightmare, that's all.