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She drove fast, pushing her luck with yellow stoplights. They didn’t talk.
Co
She’d been playing chess the entire time he’d been playing checkers.
“You’d better slow down,” he said. “Cops.”
She slowed down. Glowered and fumed.
“I’ve spent a long time trying to get my life to make sense,” she said at last. “I can’t be how you want me to be. Dan lets me be myself, and that might include something ugly or perverted or something you can’t understand, but that’s how it is. That’s how it’s going to stay. It’s how I stay sane. I never asked you to do anything or change or be anything but what you are. I need the same from you or we’ll never see each other again. And, man, I mean fucking never, because I can’t have Dan come home with a black eye every night. You get me? I don’t need this bullshit.”
“How did I rate such special attention from Dan?” Co
Co
But she wasn’t hurt or shocked. She didn’t deny anything. “Do you know why I’m always so reluctant to see you? It’s because I do love you. I love you more than the rest, maybe more than I love Dan even.”
Co
“I know you, Co
“Buttons?”
“This is pointless.”
Co
“I’m not going to call you.”
Co
30
Tyra
He went into Salty’s and made himself drunk.
Sid warned him not to drive. The bartender would call him a cab. When Sid turned his back, Co
I’m not too drunk. I’m driving fine.
Then the rapid-fire slap of foliage on his windshield. The bump. His axles slammed the ground as he bottomed out, bounced in his seat, and bashed his head against the roof. The Plymouth dove forward, angled down sharply. The mud-brown splash against the windshield.
Co
He saw what had happened. The road curved, but he hadn’t.
He hiked back down to the Plymouth, judged he could open the back door without too much more water getting in. He retrieved the backpack of meager belongings he’d salvaged from his apartment. At the top of the bank, Co
Anger surged drunkenly in his veins. He stood abruptly, jerked the trigger at the Plymouth. “Piece of shit!”
Click. Click. Click.
Unloaded. He sighed, sat down again, and loaded the revolver with the metal rings that held the bullets in tight. The next time he was angry he’d want to hear some noise.
He swung the backpack over his shoulder, held the pistol loosely as he walked five minutes to the dinghy. He shoved off, jerked the cord on the putt-putt motor. He headed upriver toward the Electric Je
Bad luck still had a few surprises for him. A half mile from the Je
He reluctantly took up the oar and paddled, cursed, and kept paddling. He was sweaty and nauseous from the exertion. His bruised ribs still ached in a vague way. All he wanted was to slip into the master cabin and fall long and hard into dreamless sleep.
The narrow inlet came into view, the boat’s white stern barely visible in the nearly complete black of night. Co
Adrenaline pumped, and Co
Blam blam blam blam.
Ricochets. The tambourine tinkle of shattered glass, the sound of a porthole dying. The shots were deafening. They still echoed along the river as Co
Nobody.
He went belowdecks, rushing around, the revolver leading the way. Only after he confirmed nobody was hiding anywhere did he really look around and see what had happened. The interior was trashed. Whoever had been here had been merciless in their search for… what?
The DiMaggio card.
Co
He went back out on deck, held his breath, listened. What if it hadn’t been a cigarette? Maybe it had only been a firefly. Co