“I got the magazine out’n the car.”
“What’s the guy eat?”
“You won’t believe it,” Richie said.
Armand, holding a bottle of Canadian whiskey in a paper bag, looked into Donna’s bedroom. He said, “We’re leaving now. See you tomorrow.”
She was over by her dresser, still wearing the robe. It hung open and she left it that way turning to look at him, one hand on her hip, showing him everything she owned. Donna didn’t say anything. What could she?
So Armand said, “I don’t know what time I’ll be back.” She was scared but still didn’t say anything. He took another look at her, that white body with the dark place showing, and closed the door. He waited in the hall for Richie to come out of the bathroom.
“You ready?”
Richie looked surprised to see him standing there. He said, “Yeah, let’s go.”
They went through the kitchen and out the back to the Dodge parked in the narrow drive. Armand had to edge past a tangle of bushes to open the door and get in his side. Richie was already behind the wheel starting the car. He got it going and sat there a moment.
Armand thinking, He forgot something.
Richie looked at him, giving him a glance, no more than that, and opened the door.
“I forgot something.”
“What?”
“I want to bring some booze.”
“I got it right here.”
“Not what I drink, you don’t.”
Armand didn’t say anything else. He waited as Richie got out of the car and went back into the house. Armand turned off the engine and sat listening. He saw Donna the way he had looked in the bedroom at her naked beneath her robe. He sat listening, thinking that Richie would use his gun if he was going to do it. He sat listening not wanting to hear that sound or have Richie come out and tell him he did it some other way, if that’s what he was doing. He sat listening until Richie opened the door and got in, handed him the bottle of Southern Comfort and started the car. They backed out and drove away from the house, lights showing in the living room. Armand didn’t say anything and neither did Richie.
20
ELEVEN-THIRTY THAT EVENING Carmen stopped at a Kountry Kitchen south of Gary, Indiana, tired and hungry, halfway home.
The hardest part of the trip was getting out of Cape Girardeau, crossing the river and following county roads east to find I-57. After that there was nothing to it. Turn left and drive straight up through almost the entire state of Illinois. Turn right on I-94 and cut across a corner of Indiana, where she was now. She’d have something to eat, get back on 94 and it would take her all the way across southern Michigan, through Detroit and to within twenty miles or so of home. Mom could wait.
Carmen was anxious to walk into her own house again, that drafty old barn with its cramped kitchen, its foyer bigger than the living room, its creaks and groans, the steam pipes making a racket in the winter. The house would be cold, it didn’t matter. She wanted to see it, make sure it was still there after more than eighty years, look out the kitchen window at the woods and the brush field and Wayne’s Chickenshit Inn. She’d call him when she got home, which would be about six-thirty in the morning if she could stay awake and drive straight through. Find out what time he was leaving. Check to see if Mom was okay and maybe wait for him. Mom could be all better now, knowing her little girl was coming home. Wayne could have already left by the time she called. But if he was there, she’d tell him not to be surprised if Ferris drops in, and if he does, be nice, okay? Just say good-bye. And Wayne would say, yeah, uh-huh, what else you want me to do? How about if I give him a hug? ...Or not mention Ferris at all. He was three hundred and fifty miles behind her, back in southeast Missouri with his muscles and wavy hair, Carmen thinking of him now as a clown who used to walk into her house, an annoying jerk rather than a serious threat. She should have spoken up to him more. Got mad and told him to get the hell out, goddamn it. And got mad thinking about it, cleaning up her plate of bacon and eggs, cottage fries, rye-bread toast and coffee, Kountry Kitchen No. 3.
She should’ve thrown something at him. Something heavy. She threw beer cans at Wayne, but beer cans were for show. Or she should’ve hit him with something. Keep a sleever bar handy for creeps who walk in the house uninvited.
Carmen finished, got the check and went to the counter to pay. A guy in a John Deere cap reached it at the same time. He touched the bill of the cap funneled over his eyes and said, “After you.” Carmen nodded, glanced at the guy, saw his eyes and the sly grin and thought, Oh shit, another one. He said, “I imagine there’s all kinds of boys after you,” and Carmen got out of there.
The pickup stood close, angle-parked in the lights of the Kountry Kitchen. She unlocked it, climbed in, reached for the door to swing it closed and the guy in the John Deere cap caught it, held it open.
“Excuse me. I just want to ask, if you got time . . .”
Carmen started the engine, revved it.
“Wait a sec now, I thought we might have a drink. There’s a spot up here before you get to the Michigan line, the Hoosier Inn off Exit Thirty-nine? You ever been there?”
Carmen took time to look at him, his face raised, hopeful now. She said, “Do you really think I want to go to a place called the Hoosier Inn off Exit Thirty-nine? For a drink or any reason at all? Are you serious?”
Carmen put the pickup in reverse and backed away from the Kountry Kitchen, the open door bringing the guy along against his will, the guy yelling now, “Hey, for Christ sake!” Scrambling to stay on his feet. Carmen braked, shifted, took off in low gear and left him. The door swung closed as she drove away.
Hit them with a truck if you don’t have a sleever bar.
Twenty years married to Wayne.
She followed her headlights along the nighttime freeway, not as tired as before, thinking about Wayne now, seeing them together. They’re in the kitchen having a beer and she’s describing the guy in the John Deere cap, oh, about thirty-five, not bad-looking. She tells what the guy said, word for word, memorized, beginning with “After you,” and then what she said, very calmly, after he invites her to have a drink. “You really think I want to go to a place called the Hoosier Inn, off Exit Thirty-nine?” Wayne would be grinning by then. “Are you serious?” He’d love it. It was the kind of thing Wayne would say. Or he’d ask the guy if he was out of his fucking mind, but “Are you serious?” still wasn’t bad. She wanted to hurry up and get home, call Wayne, and if he was still there tell him to get on his horse.
They told Wayne at Waterfront Services there were northbound tows leaving but none that had to stop at Cape. A guy who worked for the Corps of Engineers, a civilian employee, was in the office. He said Wayne could ride with him as far as Thebes, where he lived, and it was only another nine miles to the Cape bridge, but he first needed to see a man over at the Skipper Lounge. Wayne thought he meant ride in a boat, but it was a Ford pickup they drove to the pizza-smelling saloon and the man the guy from the Corps of Engineers had to see was the bartender. He had to see him keep pouring Jim Beam into a glass until the fifth was used up. By this time it was eleven-thirty at night.
Carmen, Wayne believed, would be somewhere around Chicago, while he was stuck down at the ass end of the state. The bartender kept watching him to see he didn’t lift the guy from the Corps of Engineers off the floor and threaten or shake him.
The guy kept telling Wayne to take her easy, have another, he’d still get home quicker than by towboat. Wayne, who only had every other drink with the guy, said, “Okay, if you let me drive.” Sure, hell, they’d both go to Cape and have one and the guy, smashed out of his mind by now, would drive himself home from there. Which was okay with Wayne, as long as he wasn’t riding with him.