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SINCE THE TIME, a couple years ago, when A
The guy in the living room wasn’t menacing, exactly, but he wasn’t explainable either, and that’s what had A
At the moment, he was cheerful, brisk, and indifferent to her. “Hi,” he said, with a smile, when she opened the door to him. “Andy in?”
“Not at the moment. I’m—”
“I’ll wait,” the guy said, and slithered in past her.
“But—”
It was too late; he was across the threshold. With an empty smile over his shoulder at A
“But—” Helplessly, she watched the guy look at the available furniture and go directly to the chair she thought of as hers. “I don’t know you,” she said.
Settling into A
“Is he expecting you?”
“Not for maybe twenty years,” he said, and laughed. “Don’t mind me,” he advised her. “You go on what you’re doing.”
“I’m not sure when Andy’s coming back.”
“I got nothing but time,” he said, and suddenly looked bitter, as though he’d reminded himself of something unpleasant. Something that might make him mad.
“Well…” She thought, maybe she should placate him somehow. Even though he wasn’t at all threatening, he did look as though he might get mad, even if not at her. The truth was, he barely seemed to notice she was there. She was, she knew, an attractive person, but he gave no indication at all that he’d remarked it. Which was also unsettling.
So, not wanting to, but feeling she should, she said, “Do you want a cup of coffee? Glass of water?”
“No, I’m fine,” he said, and pulled a Daily News out of his jacket pocket, all folded in on itself like origami. Unfolding it, he said, “I’ll just sit here, read my paper, wait for Andy.”
So that’s when she left him there, went to the kitchen, and called John and May’s place, because Andy had told her he wanted to see John today, so maybe he was still there. She got May, and Andy was still there, “but I don’t need to talk to him,” A
May said, “What is the situation there?”
So A
“Neither do I.”
“I’ll send Andy home right now.”
Which meant A
What she did do, for the next quarter hour, was fret. Was this man a friend of Andy’s? Was it Andy he was potentially mad at? Had she inadvertently permitted all kinds of trouble into the house? It was so hard, sometimes, to know what to do in Andy’s world.
Finally, she heard the apartment door open, so she hurried out to the living room to be present for whatever happened next, because, of course, she was partly responsible for whatever happened next. As she entered the living room, suddenly breathless though it was a mere half-dozen steps from one room to the other, she saw that Andy was here, that John had come along with him and was closing the apartment door, and that the stranger was getting to his feet, doing origami again with his newspaper. And he was smiling.
And so was Andy! It was with great relief that A
“Believe it or not,” Chester said, “I been out almost four years.”
“Well, I’ll be.” Andy seemed genuinely happy to see this strange man, which A
“I didn’t wa
“A
“Hello,” she said, thinking, You didn’t want to push yourself forward? You walked right into the house!
On the other hand, it was now clear Chester Fallon was not a threat or a problem, but a friend of some sort. And once he was Chester, somehow, he became much less threatening.
Meantime, Andy was saying, “I don’t think you know John,” and made the introductions, and A
“Not so good,” Chester told him, and said to Andy, “I take it A
“You wa
So Andy left, and the other three sat, and A
Chester looked surprised. “Told you what? I’m a friend of Andy’s, I said that.”
“But there was no … conversation.”
“Well, A
“Of course.”
“I didn’t know you, did I? It could be you’re the lady of the house, it could be you’re a bill collector, process server. No offense, I seen cops look like you.”
“Not enough of them,” John said.
“Very true,” Chester told him. “John, is it? You’re right when you’re right. Most cops, what they look like, they look like what you would look like if, your whole life, you never ate anything but Big Macs.”
Andy came back then to distribute beer, take his own seat, and say, “Chester, I haven’t seen you in years. More.”
“You know I went up,” Chester said.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Andy assured him.
“Of course it wasn’t my fault,” Chester said, “but I was still doing large time.” Including John and A
A
“You may have seen the one,” Chester said, “where the guy’s escaping in the car, they’re after him, the street becomes an alleyway, too narrow for the car, he angles sharp right, bumps the right wheels up on the curb, spins sharp left, the car’s up on two left wheels, he goes down the alley at a diagonal, drops onto four wheels where it widens out again, ta-ran-ta-rah.”
“Wow,” A
“That was me,” Chester told her. “We gotta do it in one take or otherwise I’m go