Mohawk

pleased. She looked better than when they had married, and she’d taken to going braless like the young college girls who were her classmates.When he looked at her, he felt lucky and grateful for her return, swollen with admiration for her breasts and herself. They had drawn the office blinds and done it right there on the desktop, their cries of delight muffled by the banging and wheezing in the shop on the other side of the wall.
    Indeed, the only Mohawk resident who seemed to be having a better time was Dallas Younger, whose rampage continued. The fourth night of his binge, Dallas apparently learned of Benny D.’s salvage work, because the car was gone the next morning. Somehow, Dallas had scaled the fence, subdued the vicious mutt that Benny D., who fed him, always kept at arm’s length, and somehow spirited away the car that Benny D. had purposely hidden among other autos to prevent just such an event until he could be reimbursed for his considerable trouble. And still the saga continued. Dallas at the Outside Inn, Dallas at the OTB, Dallas at Greenie’s to return Untemeyer’s ring and apologize about the bruised knuckle. Dallas. Dallas. More Dallas. Benny D. was cruelly ashamed of himself for being such a malcontent, but he couldn’t help but wish that his beloved, jiggly wife had returned a week later. He began to droop, partly out of wistfulness, partly the result of feverish activity with Mrs. Benny, who had learned somewhere that getting laid was fun. He began to philosophize about life and nearly came to the conclusion that total happiness was not in the cards for mortal men. But he was wrong, it turned out, because Mrs. Benny told him he’d better go find Dallas and bring him back to work, since the service department was backed up with troublesome Pontiacs that would listen only to him.
    So, on the night of the sixth day of Dallas’s rampage,Benny D. sallied forth in search of his chief wrench, hoping desperately that he wouldn’t find his friend spent. Mrs. Benny had counted him out fifty dollars with which to conduct his search, just enough to ensure success without creating a serious risk factor. He had searched for Dallas before, of course, and knew how to go about it. Following the time-honored theory of concentric circles, he started at the geographical center of town, say Greenie’s, and widened his loops until he hit the county line, the enchanted boundary that Dallas, as Benny D. knew from long experience, would never penetrate. By midnight Benny D. had canvased the likely Mohawk bars and pieced together a decent picture of his friend’s travels, but the trail was still cool and he began to sense that Dallas was maintaining a twenty-four-hour lead. In terms of alcohol consumed, the lead was even more impressive, though Benny did what he could to narrow the gap. He heard about a poker game at the Knights of Columbus and dropped by. Dallas wasn’t there but others were, all of them happy to see Benny D., who sat down with what remained of the fifty dollars after being assured that his paper was good. What these men didn’t know was that he had legally transferred the dealership to his wife, and he saw no reason to tell them. Anyway, he felt lucky and knew that sitting still wasn’t a bad strategy for finding somebody in Mohawk. Running in circles within a limited space could theoretically be endless. But if you stayed put, what you were chasing sometimes found you.
    This time it didn’t, though, because Benny D. had the most incredible run of luck he could remember. At one stretch he won seven hands in a rowand by three-thirty had cleaned everyone at the table, whereupon the game broke up and he was on the road again. He had nearly six hundred dollars in his pocket and couldn’t even brag to Mrs. Benny about it, the proscription of gambling having been one of the conditions of his parole. At seven, when the sun came up, he knew he’d have to return home defeated. He felt small and puny and doubted that even the sight of Mrs. Benny’s pendulous breasts would cheer him up.
    What did, in fact, was the sight of Dallas Younger’s water-marked car parked in the dealership lot. Dallas was alone in the garage, standing beneath Mrs. Schwartz’s ailing Bonneville. He had showered and shaved and was wearing a pressed shirt which, amazingly, said
Dallas
in flowing script. “I’ve been looking all over hell for you,” Benny D. said.
    “I’m right here. Somebody’s got to look after