“I can’t either,” Karen said.
“But your fooling-around love-life is also curtailed, huh?”
“It looks like it.”
“Unless you and me get something going.”
“You mean all I have to do is go to bed with you?”
Roland grinned. “You mention it, I get horny. But see, I’m not going to force you. As I told you the first time I was here, I’m your boy cuz I’m the only one you got.”
“I go to bed with you,” Karen said. “Then what?”
“You ask me to go to bed.”
“All right, I ask you. Then what happens after that?”
“We live happily ever after.”
“You move in here?”
“Tomorrow, you want me to.”
“It’s not just money then. Even a whole lot.”
“Money?” Roland said. “Shit, I want the money and everything that goes with it. You, the whole setup.”
“But you’re not going to use force, intimidation.”
“Other than keeping your dink boyfriends away so’s you become sex-starved.”
“If it’s simply between you and me,” Karen said and paused. “You don’t have a chance.”
There was Roland’s grin, showing he was enjoying himself and liked the situation. He said, “We might’ve got off on the wrong foot and all. But, listen, you’re gonna find I’m really a sweet person.”
MAGUIRE SAW THE Cadillac Coupe de Ville in the drive as he turned onto Isla Bahía. He continued past the house, seeing the dead-end ahead at the canal, and came to a stop.
Nowhere to hide. He knew it was Roland’s car in the drive: the same one he had watched Roland get in when they came out of the Yankee Clipper, Maguire hanging back so Roland wouldn’t see the Mercedes.
He’d see it now. Maybe looking at it out the window right this minute.
Well, he could turn around and get out of here, quick. Or he could go in the house- Didn’t we meet someplace before? He didn’t know how to play it. He didn’t know how Roland would react. But Roland was there and what if right at this moment Karen needed help? Shit. Andre Patterson said he had nerve; but that was going into a place ready, knowing what you were going to do, having a good idea what the reaction would be. This was way different. Goddamn Roland-he didn’t know anything about him except he was built like a six and a half foot tree stump and had the hands and the reach and a hide it would be hard to even dent, ‘less you hit him with a tire iron. From behind.
He could feel them watching him. Roland and Karen. Shit. He backed up the car, all the way past the drive, and turned in.
Marta’s hair was combed but looked wet, like she’d just washed it. Maguire said, “Anybody home?”
“He’s here,” Marta said.
“I know he is. Where are they?”
“I think you better not come in.”
“It’s all right,” Maguire said. “I’m not gonna hurt him.”
Both of them watched Maguire make his entrance, appear and wait to be invited into the living room. Karen by the fireplace, Roland seated in a deep chair with his hat on.
Gretchen came over, sniffed at Maguire’s legs and went back to Roland who reached down, giving Gretchen his hand to play with, saying, “You smell the dead fish on him, Gretchie? Huh, do you? Pee-you but it stinks, don’t it?”
Karen watched without moving, though she didn’t seem tense; her eyes following Gretchen to Roland, then returning to Maguire with a mild expression, Maguire thinking, what if the dog was a test and he had flunked it? Maybe that’s what dogs were for. Maybe that was the time, just now, to stoop down and play with Gretchen and try to think of doggie talk. He wondered how Karen was going to handle it, what she’d say-
But it was Roland who invited him in.
“Hey, come on’n sit down. You son of a gun, you knew it was me the other night in the bar, didn’t you?” Roland grinned. “You tell her that story about the woman with the parrot?”
“I don’t believe he has,” Karen said, a little surprised.
Roland waved his arm. “Come on in here and sit down, partner.”
Maguire walked around the couch facing the fireplace and eased into it at the end away from Roland. He looked at Karen: her eyes on him but not telling him anything; guarded, or only mildly curious. Then looking at Roland as he spoke.
“This woman had a sick parrot she kep’ in the bathroom,” Roland said. “Christ, spent weeks nursing it back to health, got it all well again and the parrot, you know what it did? Tried to get a drink of water in the toilet and drowned.”
Karen said, “That’s the story?”
“He didn’t tell it right,” Maguire said. “You don’t say the parrot was trying to get a drink.”
“What was it doing,” Roland said, “taking a piss?”
“No, it’s the way the woman told it,” Maguire said. “The idea, like this is a moving experience, she’s been waiting for somebody to come by so she can tell it. But then when she does, it’s at the wrong time. You know what I mean?”
“Christ, I know them women better’n you do.”
“I don’t doubt that. I’m talking about this particular woman. All alone, nobody to talk to.”
“Waiting for somebody to come give ‘er a jump,” Roland said. “I know exactly what you’re talking about. But what do you believe that parrot was doing in the toilet?”
Karen looked from Roland to Maguire.
“I believe it wanted a drink of water,” Maguire said, “but that isn’t the point.”
“If that’s what the goddarn parrot wanted, then say it,” Roland said. “Otherwise it don’t make sense what the parrot was doing in the toilet.”
“You tell it your way, I’ll tell it mine,” Maguire said.
Karen looked from Maguire to Roland.
“Shit yeah, I’ll tell it my way,” Roland said. “You leave out the best part. Or you could say-yeah, you could say the parrot was trying to take a piss and it drowned. That’d make it a better story.”
“You miss the whole point,” Maguire said.
“Miss the point-you dink, I lived out there with those people half my life.”
“I believe it,” Maguire said.
“What’s that mean, that remark?”
“You say you lived out there, I believe it. That’s all,” Maguire said, looking at the redneck son of a bitch sitting there like it was his house, feet up, playing with the dog. Be cool, Maguire thought. Take it easy. But Karen was watching, and he had to say something else.
He said, “You always wear your hat in the house?”
“You want to say something about it?”
“I asked you a simple question, that’s all.”
“You want to take it off me?”
“No, I think it looks good on you. Tells what you are.”
Black metal tongs and a poker hung at the end of the fireplace behind Karen.
“And what do you say I am?” Roland said.
“Let’s see. You wear a range hat and cowboy boots,” Maguire said, “and that suit”-aware of Karen listening-“I’d have to guess you’re with a circus.”
“You guessed it,” Roland said, starting to pull himself out of the chair, ignoring Gretchen jumping at his leg. “And you know what I do at the circus?”
Karen could say something now. Right now would be a wonderful time for her to get into it. But Karen watched them without saying a word.
Maguire paused.
Three steps to the black iron poker-if he could get it off the hook in time.
He said, “Let’s see. Are you one of the clowns?”
Roland said, “No, I’m not one of the clowns.” Standing now, ten feet away. “I’m the Wildman of the Big Swamp, and what I do”-moving toward Maguire now-“I take smartass little dinks that smell of fish and I tear ’em asshole to windpipe and throw ’em away.”
Karen said, “Why don’t you sit down?” But much too late.
Maguire pushed off the sofa, going for the fireplace. Roland reached him easily, swiveled a hip, caught Maguire in a headlock against his side and held him there. Roland squeezed his hands together to apply pressure, and Maguire gagged, feeling his breath cut off.