A new male clerk was behind the reception counter. Dill paused long enough to see if there was anything in his box. There wasn’t, so he smiled reassuringly at the clerk and stepped over to the bank of four elevators. He touched the button, looked up at the floor indicator, and saw that the nearest descending elevator was on five. Something tapped him on the shoulder and a man’s voice said, “Mr. Dill?”
The voice was a deep, deep bass with a softened Southern R in the mister. When Dill turned he saw how nicely the voice fitted the owner, who looked as though he needed the bass to go with his size, which was as tall and wide as a garage door. He was also extremely ugly. Christ, Dill thought, he’s even uglier than I am. But then the big man smiled and he was no longer ugly. That’s not true either, Dill decided. He’s still ugly, but that smile is so glorious it blinds you.
“I bet you smile a lot,” Dill said.
The big man nodded, still smiling. “All the time. If I don’t, grown men pale and little children flee.” He stopped smiling and went back to being ugly and either mean or extremely hard.
“Clay Corcoran,” the big man said, and watched Dill’s face hopefully.
Dill shook his head. “No bell rings.”
“I was hoping it would. Then I wouldn’t have to explain how ridiculous I am.”
“Ridiculous?”
“Jilted lovers are always ridiculous. That’s me. Clay Corcoran, the jilted lover. Maybe even the cuckold, which is even more ridiculous, except I’m not sure you can be a cuckold if you’re not married.”
“We could look it up,” Dill said.
“By now you must’ve figured out I’m talking about your sister.”
Dill nodded.
“I’m more than sorry about Felicity,” Corcoran said. “I’m fucking well shattered.” And as if to prove it, a tear rolled down the tanned cheek from the corner of the left eye. Both eyes were green, although the left one had some yellow flecks in it. They were small eyes, set too far back in the skull and too far away from a nose that seemed to have been clumsily remodeled. The head itself was a squared-off chunk topped by a thinning hank of tow-blond hair that was almost white. It was hair so fine that it wafted about at the slightest movement of the big body. Even the bass voice made it float a little. Below the hair was a scant inch or so of forehead that had wrinkled itself into a permanent scowl. And far below that was the chin resembling a broken plow. The total effect could bother the brave and frighten the timid, until that blinding white smile came and bathed everything in its warm, reassuring glow.
Corcoran reached up for the single tear and absently wiped his finger off on the white short-sleeved sailcloth shirt that covered his massive shoulders and chest. “Well, I just thought I’d come by and pay my respects,” he said.
“Thank you,” Dill said.
The big man hesitated. “I reckon I’d better let you go get some sleep.”
“Would you like to talk about her?”
When the smile came back again, Dill thought he had discovered the right word for it: angelic. The huge head nodded eagerly and twisted around on the eighteen-inch neck as the eyes searched for something. “Slush Pit’s still open,” Corcoran said.
“Fine.”
They started for the bar and Corcoran said, “This is real decent of you, Mr. Dill.”
“How old are you?” Dill asked.
“Thirty.”
“Thirty and above calls me Ben.”
“Felicity was what — ten years younger’n you? Twenty-seven?”
“Twenty-eight,” Dill said. “Today was her birthday.”
“Aw Christ,” Corcoran said and stopped smiling.
They chose the same table Dill had sat at earlier that day with the lawyer, Anna Maude Singe. He ordered a cognac from the cocktail waitress. Corcoran asked for a bourbon and water. When she asked him what brand of bourbon, he said he didn’t care. Dill liked the big man’s indifference.
After the drinks came and Dill had his first sip, he said, “Where’d you meet Felicity?”
“Down at the university. I was a senior and she was a junior and I was having a little trouble with my French One-O-Two because I’d redshirted the year before and—”
“Redshirted?”
“A sports fan you’re not.”
“No.”
“I dropped out of school for a year because my knee went snap and by dropping out I maintained my eligibility.”
“To do what?”
“Play football.”
“When the knee got better. I see.”
“Well, there was a one-year gap between my French One-O-One and the One-O-Two that I needed to graduate, so I asked the head of the French department to suggest a tutor. He suggested Felicity. We went out a few times, but there was no big romance or anything, and after I graduated the Raiders drafted me and I went out there.”
“There being Oakland, right?”
“Oakland then. L.A. now.”
“They moved?”
Corcoran scowled. Despite himself, Dill wanted to draw back. Corcoran noticed and smiled. “Don’t mind me, that’s just my professional puzzled-rage scowl. Is there something about football you don’t like?”
“Nothing. It’s just that I don’t follow team sports closely, probably because I never played any.”
“Never?” Corcoran seemed almost shocked. “Not even baseball — Little League?”
“Not even that. It takes some conniving, but you can actually go through life without playing on a team.”
“You’re sort of bullshitting me, aren’t you?”
“A little.”
Corcoran smiled. “That’s okay. Not many people do. I kind of like it.”
“You were playing for Oakland.”
“Right. And this time the knee went snap-crackle-pop instead of just snap and that was the end of my career as a promising linebacker. Well, I had my degree in philosophy, a brand new Pontiac GTO, two suits, and no trade — unless I wanted to be a philosopher, which I’m really not too good at. So I came back home and signed on with the cops and there Felicity was. And then it really got started with us and it was very, very good. In fact, it was goddamn near perfect.”
“What happened?”
Corcoran snorted. “Captain call-me-Gene Colder is what happened. Felicity and I’d been, well, you know, going together—”
“Seeing each other socially,” Dill said, remembering the old police reporter’s phrase.
“That’s one way of putting it, but it was a hell of a lot more than that. We’d even talked about getting married — or something close to it anyway.” He looked at Dill curiously. “She never said anything at all about me?”
“No. Not once. For all I know, she lived like a nun. I never asked because it was none of my business. She never asked about my lady friends for the same reason, I suppose. Otherwise we were fairly close. At least, I thought we were.”
“She talked about you a lot,” Corcoran said.
Dill nodded. “So what happened between you two?”
“That’s just it. Nothing happened. One day everything was great and the next day it was over. She said she needed to talk to me, but we had conflicting shifts that week and she didn’t get off till eleven. So we met at this place we used to go to a lot, this bar, and she said I’m sorry, but I’ve met someone else and I won’t be able to see you anymore. Well, I just sat there for a minute or two trying to get used to the shock and the pain — and don’t let ’em kid you, there’s real pain — and finally I knew I had to say something so I asked her who. She said that wasn’t important and I said it was important to me. She just shook her head as if she was really sorry about everything. Well, I just sat there like a fool and couldn’t think of anything to say. She got up, leaned down, and kissed me on the forehead — on the forehead, by God! — and said, Thank you, Clay. Then she left and that was the end of it.”