Billy looked down on the lights of Pearl Street. No traffic.
“You got aspirin?” he asked Angie. “I got a headache.”
“The closet shelf on the left, a small bag,” she said. “Why have you got a headache? You never get headaches.”
“Whataya mean I never get headaches? Everybody gets headaches. How the hell do you know I never get headaches?”
“All right, you get headaches,” Angie said, and she fell back into bed and crossed her feet.
In the closet, Billy looked at her picture hat, black with two white flowers. Billy snatched the hat off the shelf and waved it at her. “When you got a face like you got, you don’t need any flowers on your hat.” He put the hat back on the shelf and felt for the aspirin and found them. Then he saw her black linen suit with the plaid scarf, and the gray wool suit with the darker gray silk lapels. Goddamn Angie knew how to dress. Like a model. Too goddamn smart. A college dame. Thinks like a man.
“You’re too goddamn smart,” he said, as he went to the sink.
“What does that mean?”
“The hell with it.”
“Billy, come here. Come and sit down.”
“Gimme a rest.”
“Not that. Just come and sit.”
Billy washed his aspirin down and went and sat. She stroked his face and then dropped her hand and eyes and said, “I’ve got something sad to tell you.”
“Your cat got run over.”
“Something like that. I had an abortion.”
“Yeah?”
“It was ours.”
Billy smoked a little and then looked at her. Her eyes were on him now.
“When?”
“About three weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you ring me in on it?”
“What would you have done?”
“I don’t know. Helped you.”
“Helped get it done? A good Catholic boy like you?”
“I mean with your head. It must’ve been lousy for you.”
“You never want to know things like that. Anything that involves you. You really didn’t want to know, did you?”
“Half of it’s my kid.”
“Not a kid, a fetus. And it’s gone. Nobody’s now.”
“Goddamn it, I had a right to know.”
“You had a right?”
“You bet your ass. What the hell, I don’t have a say in my own son?”
“Of course it was a boy. You’re really classic, Billy.”
“Whatever the hell it was.”
Billy looked at his hand and saw the cigarette shaking. Goddamn ton of goddamn bricks. He’d wanted to talk about the Berman business and about his father being back in town. Angie had good sense. He wanted to ask her about money, maybe borrow some, but they got into the sack too fast. You can’t ask for money after you’ve been in the sack with a woman. Now, with this business, he couldn’t ask her anything. How do so many things happen all of a sudden? He thought of making nineteen straight passes at Slicky Joyce’s in Mechanicville. Almost broke the Greek bankrolling the game. How do nineteen straight passes happen? He stubbed out his cigarette and walked across the room to put on his pants.
“Why are you putting on your pants?”
“I got chilly.”
“No. You’re ashamed of the part of you that made me pregnant and now you want to cover yourself and hide.”
“You know everything about me. My headaches, why I put on my pants. Goddamn it cut it out!” Billy screamed. “You don’t know the first goddamn thing that’s going on with me. You think I’m a goddamn moron like your goddamn dummy husband?”
“All right, Billy. Don’t get violent.”
“Violent? You kill my kid without even asking me about it. Who made you the butcher?”
“Don’t get like this, Billy. I’m sorry I started it this way.”
“Started?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, Christ Jesus, what is this game?”
“I wanted to see if you wanted the baby.”
“Hell no, I don’t want no baby.”
“So now it’s different.”
Billy put on his shirt, unable to speak. He folded his tie and put it in the pocket of his coat, which hung on a black bentwood chair. He sat on the chair and stared at Angie.
“I can take care of it,” she said. “I already slept with Joe when I found I had it, just so I could tell him it was his. But I’d never raise it with him. All he wants to raise is money. But I would keep it and give it all the nannies and private schools a kid’d ever need. The only thing it wouldn’t have is a real father.”
She stood up. “Or I could put it up for adoption.”
“No,” Billy said.
She came across the room and stroked his face. “Or we could raise it together, somehow. Any way you wanted. I don’t mean marriage. I’ll go away and have it, and you can come and see us when you want to. The only problem is that if my husband figured it out, he’d probably have all three of us killed. But I don’t care, do you?”
“No. Of course not. What the hell do I care?”
Billy walked away from her and sat in the armchair and looked at her standing there barefoot in front of him, the shadow of her crotch winking through the silk nightgown.
“Or you can claim it any time you want, and we could go off then. I’ve got plenty of my own money. I wouldn’t need alimony.”
Billy shook his head. “I don’t buy it. All this shotgun stuff can go to hell.”
“Then you want me to get rid of it?”
“No, I don’t want that. I think you oughta have it.”
“But you don’t want anything to do with it?”
“I’ll do something.”
“What?”
“I’ll go see it.”
“Like a cocker spaniel? Why shouldn’t I get rid of it?”
“By myself, I don’t want to hurt nobody. If you do it, it’s you and I can’t say don’t. I don’t even want to know about it.”
“That’s as far as you go?”
“If you have it, I’ll say it’s mine.”
“You’ll do that?”
“I’ll do that, yeah.”
“Even if Joe says he’ll shoot you?”
“He shoots me, he’s got big trouble.”
“I didn’t expect this.”
“I’d do it for any kid. You let him into the action, he’s got to know who his old man is.”
“It’s for the kid, not me?”
“Maybe some is for you.”
“Birth certificate, baptism, that whole business?”
“Whatever you want.”
“I really didn’t think you’d do this. You never committed yourself to me on anything. You never even answered my letters.”
“Letters? What the hell am I gonna do, write you letters and have you fix up my spelling?”
“I wouldn’t do that. Oh God, I love you. You’re such a life-bringer, Billy. You’re the real man for me, but you’re the wrong clay.”
“Clay?”
“You can’t be molded. Sex won’t do it and money won’t. Even the idea of a kid wouldn’t. But you did say you’d go along with me. That’s really something.”
“What do you mean the idea of a kid?”
“There’s no kid.”
She was rocking from foot to foot, half-twisting her body, playing with the ends of her hair.
“You did get rid of it.”
“I was never pregnant.” She smiled at Billy.
“Then what, what the hell, what?”
“I needed to know what you felt, Billy. You really think I’m dumb enough to let you knock me up? It’s just that we never talk about things that really matter. This was the first time we ever talked about anything important that wasn’t money or my goddamn husband. I know almost nothing about your life. All I know is I love you more now than I did when you walked in the door. I knew I wanted you even before I met you.”