Danny was on the road that night. “He’s such a sweet man,” Anna Lia told Libbie, topping off her glass. “But in bed — ” She blushed.
“What?” Libbie said.
“He’s all business, you know; he never slows down. I can never get … loo … loober — ”
“Lubricated?”
“Yes. It’s very painful with him.”
“Have you told him?”
“I try. But he starts to frown, like a sad little boy, and I have no heart.”
“Have you tried Vaseline? Or — ”
Anna Lia laughed. “With Roberto, I never need it.” She rubbed her muscled calves. “Libbie, it’s never been so good with a man. I’m so much in love.”
Libbie had heard her friend’s romance talk before. This time Libbie didn’t get it: Roberto was short, with thin, greasy hair. He had a bright, animated face, but it seemed to move in many directions at once. Libbie had found him repulsive when Anna Lia first introduced him to her. But then, Libbie had long ago stopped analyzing couples. Why hadn’t her folks taken shovels to each other? Why had Carla stayed with Edgar? Libbie couldn’t even say why she’d married her own first husband. Foolishness. Youth.
As they talked that night, Robi circled a flower of popcorn — as though he were stalking a tiny bird. “Anna Lia, does Danny know about Roberto?” Libbie asked.
“Not yet.” Anna Lia gulped her wine. “But I can’t hide my feelings much longer.”
“Oh, honey.” Libbie touched her friend’s knee.
Then Robi launched across the table — “Ai!” Anna Lia chirped — toppling the salt and pepper swans.
The animal shelter smelled of wet fur. Barking and wailing. Even if the kitties were here, how would she find them? She stutter-stepped down the hall past small wire cages. A runnel ran the length of the floor. A clear liquid washed through it. The fluid smelled like pesticide.
Then Robi appeared in front of her, huddled against a wall. Libbie peered into the cage. Suzi trembled in a corner, her pink collar, which had always been too big for her, bunched around her ears. “Hi, guys,” Libbie said, setting off a chorus of howls.
Two young men in white coats helped her carry the cats to her van. She unlocked the door; Suzi and Robi scrambled out of sight beneath the back seat, next to the box with her dress. When she had traveled a few miles, Robi braved the open. “Hey, boy,” she whispered. “It’s all right, sweetie. Come here.” He stepped around the gearshift, then crouched, whiskers twitching, on the seat beside her. He stared at Libbie.
“What did you see?” She scratched behind his ears. “Hmm? What really happened in that apartment?”
Glass as fine as cotton candy filled the cracks in the walk in front of Discomundo. Three summers ago, Hurricane Alicia had lashed the city, tipping palms and pines, popping windows out of downtown buildings, sweeping cars down the bayou. Discomundo’s plateglass window had shredded like confetti — it wasn’t the record store then, but a take-out taco place. As soon as Danny rented the space for her, Anna Lia went to work cleaning the walk, but she never could clear all the glass. It was embedded in the cement.
Standing here now, scraping shards with his boots, Danny swallowed hard. As soon as he opened the door, he’d feel Anna Lia’s breath on his neck. He knew it.
“Want some company?”
Danny looked up to see a tall woman in a short blue skirt and knee-high boots. She dug a finger into a pack of Virginia Slims.
“Christ, move on,” he said. “This is a respectable place of business, all right?”
“Whatever you say, sugar.” She pulled a Bic lighter from her purse, then strolled across the street.
In the past two months, more and more hookers had found this part of Montrose. The Vice Squad had chased them from their old haunts. Eventually, they’d be run out of here, too, but in the meantime, Anna Lia had placed daily calls to the local precinct house.
The last time he saw her, she said, “I don’t see what’s so sexy about these ladies. They’re skinny. And their faces are hard.”
“Right.” He’d touched her hip; she slipped his hand.
Across the street now, the woman stationed herself against a telephone pole in front of Chimichanga. One of the kitchen boys emerged from the restaurant’s side door, did a comic doubletake, and whistled at her.
Inside the record store, a pair of teenage Mexican couples browsed the aisles. Accordions rippled through hidden speakers behind a warped Formica counter; plaintive men wailed, “Mi unico camino.” A piece of notebook paper taped to the cash register said NOW PLAYING: Conjunto Bernal.
Danny sniffed. White Shoulders. Anna Lia’s perfume, still in the air.
He didn’t see Marie at first, then he noticed her just inside the beaded curtain to the stock room. She was unpacking a cardboard box. He stood for a minute, waiting for her to spot him, his eyes on the scuffed white floor, on the posters of Freddie Fender and Fito Olivares on the walls. Finally she turned; when she saw him, her face, behind the rain of plastic — red, yellow, blue, swimming in the doorway — flushed with grief.
She brushed the beads aside. They crackled like popping hot oil. “Oh Danny,” she whispered, stepping into his arms, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe what’s happened.”
She didn’t hug him the way Libbie and Carla did, sincerely but with a mild resistance, signaling only friendship. Marie’s embrace was full and warm and vaguely erotic, even now. She and Danny had always gotten a buzz from each other, even when he was married to Anna Lia. They’d never spoken about it; it was just there, like the cantos playing always in the store.
He stroked her thick black curls. Blue eyeshadow, mixed with tears, leaked onto his shirt. “Oh god, I’m sorry,” she said, wiping his arm.
“Don’t fret about it,” Danny said. The young shoppers watched them over the tops of the record bins.
“Marie, I need to know. Has Roberto Capriati been around?”
She pulled away and looked at him, worried.
“I’m not angry with him. Not anymore. That’s behind me.”
“Good.”
“But I need to talk to him. I have to know if Anna Lia was mad enough … mad enough at him … to …”
“Danny, she couldn’t … it’s crazy.”
“I know.”
“It’s that other man. Smitts.”
“The cops say — ”
“I saw the stuff.” She was stroking his arm. After his split from Anna Lia, he’d thought about Marie, but by then she was steady with a cook at Chimichanga.
“If Capriati comes in, tell him to get in touch with me. Just to talk.”
“You could find him at the radio station.”
“They’d let me in?”
“It’s worth a try.”
A young man gripping a Paco de Lucia album approached the cash register. While Marie rang up the sale, Danny turned to leave. “Danny, wait,” she said. She slipped the record into a green paper sack, wished her customer a nice day. Then she pulled Danny over, by the front counter. “What about the store?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Anna Lia never gave me details, but I know we’ve been losing money from the start. We’ll have to go over the books — or somebody will.” She looked at the floor. “I like working here, Danny, but I know you’ve kept the place running just for her. Are you going to shut it down?”
He stared at her and blinked several times. “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t thought about it yet.”