— She smoked. Same as anybody else.
— The tumours in her lungs are almost certainly a result of heavy smoking. I am not making any recommendations to you, Mr. King, but you might want to give that some thought if you are also a smoker.
Lee was unsure how to respond. He looked to Barry for any sign of comradeship but Barry had his plain face on. Lee shifted his jaw. Dr. Vijay flipped a page on the clipboard.
— As it is, your mother’s treatment seems to be progressing as well as can be expected. The third stage of the sickness, which she was diagnosed with in August, did your family explain this to you?
— They said she has a year to live, said Lee.
— Yes, that’s the estimate. I don’t want to give you any false hope. Still, she is responding well to the radiotherapy.
— She’s got this faith, said Barry abruptly. She knows Whose Hands she’s in.
— Yes, said Dr. Vijay, and he cleared his throat.
Faith was a funny thing for Lee. He’d been told how faith was shaped and what it looked like and how he could resolve himself to it. One time the prison chaplain drew from Revelations, how when a child of God walks away from the Lord, the Lord will yet reach to call him home. The chaplain said how when the call came it was faith by which it was heard. How faith was like a telephone. Lee had heard how the call was to come into your heart and thus deliver you.
After the visit to the hospital Lee went back to Union Street. He got supper at a small diner he hadn’t visited before and then, walking home, he saw Speedy cruising that part of town in his wreck of a car on God knows what kind of errand. Speedy saw him and stopped the car and said it was good to see him, never mind the way they’d parted at the North Star. Speedy wanted to know what Lee was up to that night. They went to the Corner Pocket from there. The conversation with Dr. Vijay stayed in Lee’s head but after a couple of drinks he felt alright.
He’d been a drinker through much of his prison sentence. There were cons who made a wicked homebrew out of fruit scraps and whatever else they could get their hands on, sometimes potatoes. If it was a bad brew, it could blind you, or worse. But if it was a good brew, and it was generally alright, it could help you forget where you were for a little while. It could help you feel big if you needed to. He’d sobered up later, after he’d been working steadily in the woodshop for a few years and the possibility of an early parole had started to take shape. Writing back and forth with Barry had helped. His sobriety put him in good stead with the parole board once his time to be heard came around, but they did not impose it on him as a condition. Maybe they’d thought he could go straight. Maybe they’d seen that in him, even before he’d seen it in himself.
— Lucky to run into you this aft, said Speedy.
Lee chalked the tip of his cue and drank his rye and cola. He broke the balls on the table and studied where they’d moved to.
Speedy talked about the latest spree his woman had gotten involved in. Across the poolroom was that sharp-featured man again, shooting pool with a buddy. When Lee saw the man, he felt a niggling pull of familiarity.
— So how’s this gal of yours?
— What?
— Your lady friend, said Speedy.
— She’s good. She’s doing some kind of card game with her girlfriends tonight. They read cards that tell you this or that about a person. Their fate.
— There’s just all kinds of crazy nonsense out there.
Lee deftly beat Speedy. They had some more drinks and played a few more games. Speedy maundered on about other topics. He asked Lee how work was going. Lee told him about the island where they’d torn out the kitchen.
Speedy did not remain much longer. He stayed only long enough that Lee wondered if it had been deliberate that they’d met up in the first place. Lee was a little bit drunk, loosened up. But he could feel clearly that Speedy was up to something.
— Say, Lee, how’s about we go run us down some better action than here.
— I don’t know what kind of better action you got in mind.
— Some of them friends of mine.
— What, those boys I met?
— Sure. On a Saturday they like to have a bash out there. What do you say.
Lee bent over his cue and tried a bank shot but he scratched it.
— I guess I’d just as soon stay around here, said Lee. You know.
— Sure, Speedy said after a moment. Well, you know where we’re all at. If you want to steal a car and come on out. I’m only kidding you.
They shook hands and Speedy gathered his jacket and left. Lee put his cue down on the felt and went over to the bar. He and the barman exchanged some words of conversation. Lee got another drink. He wondered briefly how it might be out at the roadhouse, he couldn’t deny that, but he was also relieved that Speedy was gone.
He went back to his table and racked himself a new game. Then the sharp-featured man and his buddy drifted over to him. The buddy had black grease lining his fingernails and was wearing a Penzoil jacket with a name tag on the breast that read Clark.
— How about a game? said the long-haired man.
— There’s two of you.
— We’ll take turns. Us and you.
— What, you want to stake some cash on it?
— Let’s play a friendly game first, said the man. Then we’ll see if we want to stake some cash on it.
They set the balls and Lee lined up his cue and broke. The sharp-featured man was studying him intently. Lee took a long drink and rubbed the back of his neck.
— Do I know you? Are you one of the subtrades that Clifton Murray brings around?
— I seen you around, said the man. Once at the Owl Cafe.
That was it. Plain as day-the long-haired man, down-filled vest, snapping his fingers to try to get Helen’s attention, the first day Lee had met her.
— Oh, said Lee. Okay.
They played halfway through a game. They were not bad but Lee was better. He was down to the last two stripes and the eight ball and there were still four solids on the table. The two townies finished their jug of beer and the man with the Clark name tag went over to the bar to get another.
— I seen you talking to Miss Helen at the cafe, said the sharp-featured man.
— Is that a problem?
— No. Why would you think that?
Clark returned with the jug of beer. Lee clipped the cue ball hard. He took a quick look around the poolroom.
— I think you’re by yourself, said the man. How is Helen treating you anyhow?
— Kind of my business, don’t you think?
— She was treating me pretty good for awhile.
— You’re starting to get on my nerves, buck.
— Well, I wouldn’t want to do that.
Lee breathed. Then all at once he dropped his pool cue on the tabletop. He said: Fuck this.
— Hey now, no reason to get like that.
The two townies were grinning. Lee walked over to the bar, feeling the pulse in his eyes. He sat on a stool and paid off the table and ordered another drink.
— You know them guys? said Lee.
— Who, said the barman. Over at the table you had?
— Yeah.
— I’ve seen them around, I suppose.
A man came up and asked the barman for something and Lee worked on his drink. After a few minutes he looked back over his shoulder. The sharp-featured man and his buddy were gone.
Lee left the Corner Pocket a little before eleven o’clock. He went out the back door and hopped over a concrete knee-wall and cut through the lot of Dutch’s Chevrolet Pontiac Buick, New And Used. He turned up the collar of his new jacket and it was only because he stopped to light a cigarette that he saw them coming for him.
Their motions were reflected dully in the flank of a used Skylark. They were coming quickly down the narrow space between the cars. He turned just in time to see the man with the Clark name patch bearing down in the lead, swinging something. Lee bobbed sideways and the thing Clark was swinging crashed into his clavicle. Pain flashed down through his body and his arm went numb and for just a second Clark and the sharp-featured man, crowding in behind him, looked like maybe they weren’t sure what they were doing. Then Clark took another step and just as he put his weight down, Lee swung his steel-toe boot into the side of the forward knee. Clark dropped and let go of what he’d swung. A long wool sock with a pool ball rolling out of it. The ball rolled to rest against the Skylark’s tire and the sharp-featured man gaped at it. Lee kicked him in the groin. He dropped noiselessly and Lee kicked him again, first in the ribs and then across the jaw. Lee was breathing heavily now and was acutely aware of the pain in his shoulder. He looked. Clark was kneeling on his good knee, groping for the pool ball. Lee stomped the man’s fingers against the pavement and bent over him and punched him a number of times in the face. The man fell over.