“I laughed. He was so serious, and it was so dumb. I said, ‘Frank, am I giving off some kind of desperate vibe, or what?’ He’s an engineer at GM. He drives a Buick and has outlines of all his tools on a pegboard in the garage so he doesn’t put something in the wrong place. I thought, wow, where’d that come from?”
“What kind of neighborhood do you live in? All these perverts coming out of the woodwork.” Maureen finished her wine.
“He and Owen were friends, played tennis in a league together for years.”
Maureen lit another cigarette. “So how’re you doing? You doing all right?”
“I’m okay.” Kate looked away, glanced out the kitchen window at the pool still covered for a couple more weeks.
Maureen said, “You’re not very convincing.”
“I’m fine-most of the time, but then I’ll see something of Owen’s, or a picture of him. The other day, his Corvette pulled up in the driveway and for a couple seconds I forgot and thought he was home. He left it at the shop and one of the young guys was returning it.” Kate felt her eyes well up. “Night’s the worst, I reach for him in bed.” She lost it now, tears coming down her face like she had no control, and Maureen came around the island counter and hugged her and she was crying too.
“Should’ve happened to those two schmucks I married-not Owen.”
Now they were laughing, Kate picturing Maureen’s first husband, Carlo, a short balding director who shot five-Step Restroom Cleaning, thought he was the next Spielberg.
“All right, I’m going to stop asking questions. I came over to cheer you up and look what I’ve done.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Kate said. She lit a cigarette. “People have been calling, offering ways to help me cope, handle what I’ve been through.”
Maureen said, “Like who?”
“A group called Afghans for Widows invited me to stop over,” Kate said. “They express their grief by knitting.”
“What’s that all about?”
Kate said, “They knit afghans to help relieve their stress and loneliness.”
“Come on.”
“And a woman from the Community House asked me if I wanted to join her poetry workshop. Said poetry is a common way of expressing grief.”
Maureen lit a cigarette.
“Every workshop starts with a reading-it might be ‘Grieve Not’ by William Wordsworth, or ‘Grief ’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” Kate sipped her wine. “And then all the grieving poets write a poem. The woman said a few lines of poetry can express deep emotional feelings.”
“Are you putting me on?”
“It’s okay. People are trying to help,” Kate said. “I packed up all Owen’s clothes in boxes and had the Purple Heart come and pick everything up.”
Maureen said, “Why?”
“It’s time…” Kate said. “I think about him every day and I probably always will, but… it’s time to move on.”
Maureen poured more wine in her glass. “How’s Lukey?”
“He’s not getting any better,” Kate said. “I’m worried about him. His counselor called and said his teachers are concerned about him. He’s in class but he’s not there. Doesn’t do his homework. His grades have dropped.”
Maureen said, “Do you talk to him about it?”
“He doesn’t talk. He comes home and goes to his room. He doesn’t see his friends. Doesn’t do anything.”
“Isn’t he seeing someone?”
“Yeah,” Kate said. “A psychiatrist recommended by the school.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t need help, I’ve got all the neighborhood men.”
Maureen grinned. “What did the dirty-talker say?”
Kate took a sip of wine, trying to remember and then she did and started to laugh.
EIGHT
Amber told DeJuan about this dude was looking for someone to pop his wife. DeJuan said, “Why you telling me?”
Amber said, “ ’Cause he’s offering ten grand and I thought maybe you’d be interested.”
She was behind the bar, mixing a drink, looking fine in her black low-cut outfit. DeJuan said, “I strike you as somebody going to kill some motherfucker for money?”
Amber said, “Why you think I’m telling you?”
“That the way you see me, huh?” He picked up his drink, Courvoisier and Coke and finished it.
Amber said, “Want another one?”
He nodded. The music was so loud he could hardly hear her. Place was packed with scene-makers on a Thursday night. Two-deep at the bar. He was in one of the swivel bar chairs, watching an early-season Tigers game on the flat screen. Amber put a fresh drink in front of him. He said, “How you know this dude is looking for someone?”
“We used to go out,” Amber said. “Let me put it another way. He used to take me to his place in Bermuda. Fly down in the Gulfstream, Marty doing lines like the governor just pardoned him.”
DeJuan said, “You tell him about me?”
Amber said, “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“Where’s he at?”
“See that guy with the long silver hair?”
DeJuan saw him down the bar. Weird-looking, kind of freakish dude, bald on top with long hair hanging off the back of his head, mid-fifties, drinking what looked like vodka on the rocks-the right glass, with a slice of lemon. He was all over this young thing, blond in a tank top, seemed to be ignoring him.
Amber said, “Go talk to him if you’re interested.”
She moved down the bar to get a drink for someone. DeJuan looked up at the TV, saw Maggs hit a tater to left against the Twins, watched him run the bases and win the game, Ordonez making it look easy. DeJuan looked down the bar again, saw the dude with the hair finish his drink, get up and move through the crowd. DeJuan put his drink on the bar top and followed him outside, standing behind him on the street, waiting for the light to change. It was dark, the marquee of the Birmingham Theater casting light on the scene. And the people were out, little bitches in their skimpy, skin-tight outfits, the man checking them out, not missing a thing.
He crossed the street. It was easy to follow him with that hair-compensating for being bald on top, that silver pelt he had, saying, look motherfucker, I got all the hair I need. Check it out.
DeJuan followed him, trying to catch up. The man walking fast, almost running. He stopped in front of a restaurant, sign said 220, went down the stairs into a place called Edison’s, high-priced Birmingham nightclub look like somebody’s basement-pipes and shit exposed in the ceiling-like it was under construction. Place was dark and crowded and filled with smoke. DeJuan felt his eyes burn. He didn’t care for cigarettes. Never had one in his life, never would.
The man stopped at the bar, ordered a vodka, took his drink into the men’s. DeJuan followed him in, only two guys in there and watched him take out a coke vial, do a one on one.
He saw DeJuan looking at him and said, “You a cop?”
DeJuan said, “I look like a cop?”
“Want a bump?”
DeJuan said, “Amber say you’re looking for a contractor.”
Man said, “What’re you talking about?”
DeJuan said, “Looking for somebody to fulfill a contract is what I understand.”
He put the little black spoon up to his nose and snorted it up his left nostril, then his right.
“Got somebody around, you don’t want around no more.”
He pinched his nose and snorted hard and screwed the top back on the vial and put it in his shirt pocket. “Now’s not the time. Maybe we can meet somewhere, discuss a business arrangement.”
DeJuan liked that, the man talking about it in his serious business voice now. He wrote his phone number on a piece of paper, handed it to him. “My private line. Call when you’re ready to talk.”
DeJuan went through the door back into the smoky nightclub, Thornetta Davis doing “I Ain’t Superstitious,” belting out the lyrics as DeJuan passed in front her, checking out the country club dudes dancing with their ladies, if you could call it that, stiff moves and no rhythm like they dancing to some other song.
DeJuan was robbing a 7-Eleven the next morning when his cell phone rang. It was the dude with the hair.