"Why don't you go inside your hotel and get some sleep," I said to her.
She wiped her eyes and looked out the window, surprised to see her hotel, as if it were a spaceship that had silently landed.
"I'm not dumping you out on the roadside, Dorothy. But right now I think it's best we're not together."
She sniffled, her rage fading like fireworks in the night. "I'll get you to your room," I said.
She shook her head, her hands motionless in her lap, tears sliding down her miserable face.
"She didn't want to see me," she said in a voice as quiet as a breath. "The minute I came off the elevator in that hospital, she looked as if someone had just spat on her food."
A group of people were walking out of the Tobacco Company. I recognized the men who had been at Dorothy's table. They were walking unsteadily and laughing too loudly.
"She's always wanted to be just like you, Kay. Do you have any idea how that feels?" she cried. "I'm a somebody, too. Why can't she want to be like me?"
She suddenly moved over and hugged me. She cried into my neck, sobbing, shaking. I wanted to love her. But I didn't. I never had.
"I want her to adore me, too!" she exclaimed, carried away by emotion and alcohol and her own addiction to drama. "I want her to admire me, too! I want her to brag about me like she does you! I want her to think I'm brilliant and strong, that everyone turns around and looks at me when I walk into a room. I want her to think and say all those things-she thinks and says about you! I want her to ask my advice and want to grow up to be just like me."
I put the car in gear and drove up to the entrance of the hotel.
"Dorothy," I said, "you're the most selfish person I've ever known." 30It was almost nine o'clock by the time I got home, and I worried that I should have brought Dorothy with me instead of leaving her at the hotel. I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if she had gone right back across the street to the bar. Maybe there were a few lonely men left she could amuse.
I checked my telephone messages, annoyed by hangups. There were seven of them, and caller-m read unavailable each time. Reporters didn't like to leave messages, even at my office, because it gave me the option of not calling them back. I heard a car door shut in the driveway and almost wondered if it were Dorothy, but when I checked, a yellow taxi was driving away as Lucy rang the bell.
She was carrying one small suitcase and a tote bag and dropped them in the foyer, shoving the door shut without hugging me. Her left cheek was one dark purple bruise, and several smaller ones were beginning to turn yellow at the edges. I had seen enough injuries like that to know she had been punched.
"I hate her," she started in, glaring at me as if I were to blame. "Who told her to come here? Was it you?"
"You know I would never do something like that:' I said.
"Come on. Let's talk. We have so much talking to do. My God, I was beginning to think I was never going to see you again."
I sat her in front of the fire and tossed in another log. Lucy looked awful. She had dark circles under her eyes, her jeans and sweater were hanging off her, her reddishbrown hair was falling over her face. She propped a foot up on my coffee table. Velcro ripped as she took off her ankle holster and gun.
"You got anything to drink in this house?" she asked. "Some bourbon or something? There was no damn heat in the back of the taxi and the window wouldn't close. I'm frozen. Look at my hands."
She held them out. The nails were blue. I took both of them in mine and held them tight. I moved closer to her on the couch and put my arms around her again. She felt so thin.
"What happened to all that muscle?" I tried to be funny.
"I haven't had much food..:" She stared into the fire.
"They don't have food in Miami?"
She wouldn't smile.
"Why did Mother have to come? Why can't she just leave me alone? All my life she doesn't do a goddamn fucking thing except subject me to all her men, men, men," she said. "Parade herself around with all these dicks fawning over her while I had nobody. Hell, they had nobody, either, and didn't even know it."
"You've always had me."
She shoved her hair out of her eyes and didn't seem to hear me.
"You know what she did at the hospital?"
"How did she know where to find you?" I had to have that question answered first, and Lucy knew why I asked it.
"Because she's my birth mother," she said with singsong sarcasm. "So she's listed on various forms whether I like it or not, and of course she knows who Jo is. So Mom tracks down Jo's parents here in Richmond and finds out everything because she's so manipulative and people always think she's wonderful. The Sanderses tell her where Jo's room'is and Mother shows up at the hospital this morning and I didn't even know she was here until I was sitting there in the waiting area and she walked in like the prima donna she is."
She clenched and unclenched her fists as if her fingers were stiff.
"Then guess what?" she went on. "Mom puts on this big sympathetic act with the Sanderses. Is bringing them coffee, sandwiches, giving them all her little pearls of philosophy. And they're talking and talking, and I'm just sitting there like I don't exist, and then Mom comes over and pats my hand and says, Jo isn't having any visitors today.
"I ask her who the hell she is, telling me that. She says the Sanderses wanted her to tell me because they didn't want to hurt my feelings. So I finally just fucking leave. Mom may still be there for all I know."
"She's not," I said.
Lucy got up and stabbed a log with the poker. Sparks swarmed as if in protest.
"She's gone too far. This time she's done it," my niece said.
"Let's don't talk about her. I want to talk about you. Tell me what happened in Miami:"
She sat on the rug, leaning against the couch, staring into the fire. I got up and went to the bar and poured her a Booker's bourbon.
"Aunt Kay, I've got to see her."
I handed Lucy the drink and sat back down. I massaged her shoulders and she began to loosen up, her voice getting drowsy.
"She's in there and doesn't know I'm waiting for her. Maybe she thinks I can't be bothered."
"Why in the world would she think that, Lucy?"
She didn't answer me, but seemed drawn into smoke and flames. She sipped her drink.
"When we were driving there in my hot little V -twelveBenz," she said in a distant voice, "Jo had this bad feeling and she told me she did. I said it was normal to have a bad feeling when you're about to do a takedown. I even kidded her about it."
She paused, just staring at flames as if she were seeing something else.
"We get to the door of the apartment that these OneSixty-Fiver assholes are using as their clubhouse;' she resumed, "and Jo goes first. There're six of them in there instead of three. Right away we know we're had and I know what they're going to do. One of them grabs Jo and sticks a gun to her head to make her tell them where the Fisher Island place is we'd set up for the hit."
She took a deep breath and was silent, as if she couldn't go on. She sipped the bourbon.
"God, what is this stuff? The vapors alone are knocking me out."
"A hundred and twenty proof. Usually I'm not a pusher, but it wouldn't be such a bad thing for you to be knocked out right now. Stay here with me for a while;" I said.
"ATF and DEA did everything right," she told me.
"These things happen, Lucy."
"I had to think so fast. The only thing I knew to do was act like I didn't care if they blew her brains out or not. Here they are holding a gun to her head and I start acting pissed off at her, which wasn't at all what they were expecting."
She took another swallow of bourbon. It was hitting her hard.
"I walked up to this Moroccan asshole with the gun and get right in his face and tell him to go ahead and waste her, that she's a stupid bitch and I'm sick of her always getting in my way. But if he does her now, all he's going to do is fuck himself and everybody else."